The Ultimate Fighter 8 Finale card released; 16 cast members booked

The Ultimate Fighting Championship has released its full fight card for the Dec. 13 live finale of “The Ultimate Fighter: Team Nogueira vs. Team Mir,” and a total of 16 cast members have been slotted for the event.

The event takes place at The Palms Las Vegas, and the main card airs live on Spike TV.

The finals for the show’s lightweight and light-heavyweight tournaments were determined during Wednesday’s back-to-back new episodes of the reality show.

The two lightweight finalists are Phillipe Nover and Efrain Escudero. The light-heavyweight finalists include Vinny Magalhaes and MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) blogger Ryan Bader.

Previously announced non-“TUF” bouts of Jason MacDonald vs. Wilson Gouveia and Kevin Burns vs. Anthony Johnson are also set for the main card.

The final televised bout, perhaps non-surprisingly, goes to controversial cast member and semifinalist Junie Browning, who’s been pitted against Dave Kaplan, in the live finale.

The Latest

In this week’s Trading Shots, Danny Downes and Ben Fowlkes look at Ronda Rousey’s 34-second victory over Bethe Correia at UFC 190 and try to put it into terms that capture the moment without getting swept away by it.

A total of 26 fighters got their chance to shine on Saturday as part of UFC 190 at Rio de Janeiro’s HSBC Arena. Now that UFC 190 is in the books, it’s time to commence MMAjunkie’s “Three Stars” ceremony.

The man known for cranking submissions to the point of injury added eye-gouging to his repertoire. But is the controversy of Rousimar Palhares too essential to his bizarre, awful appeal for his employers to take any meaningful action against him?